The present invention relates generally to the drying of shoes and, more particularly, to an accessory for an automatic clothes dryer that allows the tumble free drying of shoes without adversely affecting the tumbling action and, therefore, the effective drying of other clothes in the dryer.
It is not uncommon for shoes to become wet. This may occur, for example, when it rains unexpectedly and an individual must walk across wet ground and/or through wet grass to reach his desired destination. Athletic shoes in particular may also become sweaty and dirty and need washing to restore their appearance and eliminate undesirable odors. Since the wearing of wet shoes is neither comfortable nor healthy it is, of course, desirable to dry the shoes before they are worn again.
The drying of wet shoes may be accomplished in a number of different ways. The shoes may simply be exposed to the ambient atmosphere. This prevents damage to the shoes from excessive heat but it may require 24 hours or more to complete the drying process depending on humidity and temperature levels. As such, where the shoes need to be dried quickly so as to be available for wear within a shorter time, an alternative drying approach must be used.
To achieve more rapid drying some individuals have resorted to placing the shoes in an oven. It should be appreciated, however, that an oven is not designed to dry shoes. Even on a relatively low temperature setting, the element that heats the oven may become sufficiently hot to cause the shoes to shrink or warp and possibly even melt the soles of the shoes to the oven rack. Should the shrinking or warping of the shoes reach a critical degree the shoes become too uncomfortable to be worn again. Where the soles actually melt, their resulting configuration may make the shoes unsightly, as well as making them uncomfortable to wear. As such, the drying of shoes in an oven is a completely unsatisfactory approach.
The shoes could also be cycled through an automatic clothes dryer so as to rapidly dry the shoes for wear in a relatively short time. While a dryer does effectively dry the shoes without causing any real damage as described above with respect to an oven, this method is not without its disadvantages. Specifically, conventional automatic dryers include a rotating metal dryer drum. The drum includes a series of radially extending paddles on its inner circumferential surface to tumble the clothes being dryed. This tumbling exposes the greatest surface area of the clothes to the drying air currents passing through the drum so as to improve overall drying effectiveness and efficiency.
The rotating and tumbling action produced by the dryer is effective for drying clothes but is inappropriate for drying shoes. The shoes in a dryer are essentially tossed back and forth in the drying drum. As the shoes bounce against the wall of the drum disconcerting and annoying banging noises are produced. The shoes may also become damaged by scuffing against each other or the paddles or wall of the drum. Further, where heavy shoes, such as hightopped basketball sneakers or hiking shoes are being dryed, the shoes may even damage the paddles or drum of the dryer by denting the metal material. In the event the dryer drum is bent and becomes out-of-round anywhere along the track that is used to guide the rotating drum, dryer operation may become impaired. Any resulting deformations in drum track could cause excessive wear in the guide bearings that are received in the track and support the drum during rotation. Thus, costly repair and perhaps replacement of the bearings or the drum itself results. Thus, it should be appreciated that this approach is also unsatisfactory.
Still, the suitability of an automatic dryer to dry shoes through the provision of circulating, drying air should not go unappreciated. It is only the tumbling action created in a dryer that leads to the problems discussed above. Recognizing this, methods and apparatus have been developed for drying articles within an automatic clothes dryer without the free tumbling action. Examples of these are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,256,616 to McGoldrick and 4,109,397 to Daily. In McGoldrick warm air from the exhaust duct of a laundry dryer is diverted into a separate shoe drying compartment mounted on the dryer. Disadvantageously, this apparatus and method requires construction of a separate drying compartment for the shoes and a damper or a valve in the exhaust duct of the dryer.
Daily discloses a covered basket 34 that is mounted within the drying drum so as to be positioned about the rotational axis of the drum. Articles held in the basket are prevented from freely tumbling against the wall of the dryer drum. It should be appreciated, however, that the basket by extending about the rotational axis of the dryer drum prevents in any way the effective tumbling of other articles outside the basket within the dryer drum. As such, the basket in Daily can only be used to dry shoes separately from clothes and other articles appropriate for tumble drying.
It, of course, would be desirable to avoid the inconvenience of having to run independent drying cycles for the regular dryer load and the shoes in the non-tumbling basket. This is not just a waste of the operator's valuable time. It is also an inefficient use of energy since the dryer circulates heated air with the capacity of drying both the regular load and the shoes in the non-tumble basket during any single drying cycle.